Don’t Be Creative

Creative talk and exploration is not the same as the act of creation. A creator can hold in their hands what they’ve made. Little blog entries and practice poems won’t do. A creator makes things.

I don’t know about you, but I get all sorts of story ideas. I’d like to think quite a few of them are good. Yet, those ideas aren’t worth much if they never see ink (or pixels, since I type). Being creative is all well and good, but if that creativity never sees creation, it doesn’t do much.

So this is my urging, to both myself and you: Don’t be creative and leave it at that. Use your creativity to create.

(I do find it ironic that I’m posting this thought in a “little blog entry” and just that is said to “not do” in my quote. Ah, well.)

I think the author has a point about needing to create something, but I don’t think his post is speaking against short stories. I think those are things you can hold in your hand as having created. That’s making something. It’s when people spend a lot of time talking about being creative, but never actually do anything with it… well, that’s a problem.

Published by Jon

I'm a pastor in Wisconsin. Constantly writing, whether it be fiction or sermons or anything in between. Husband and father. Over all this, Christian, willing and joyful servant to good master Jesus.
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